I was browsing around in youtube last night and came across a video from a Columbian youth.

The question was so poignant I immediately knew it would make a great lesson.

Today in Davos, the World Economic Forumbegins. To support their activities, other than their website, the WEF have also created an interactive page on youtube for questions and lectures on a number of topics including economy, ethics, environment and politics.

Let your students choose between watching further videos on youtube, listening to podcasts or reading articles, blog postings etc on the WEF and ask them to report back on their activities next week (or next lesson(s)).

You could also ask them to research the people present or behind the scenes. Alternatively, you can also ask your students to look into the history of the Forum and the location chosen.

Or, if you're lucky enough to be teaching a group with great technology skills, teens /youth perhaps, why not get them to make video responses on their cameras or camera phones and actually participate in the debates - such fun!

Best,Karennep.s don't forget you can .pdf this page or send it to yourself/ a friend. Buttons below.

And yup, that's Obama in the background. Really, it's not photo-shopped.

It was taken in Berlin during the big speech back in July last year... I'd flown up to volunteer with Dems abroad and had a super-super-duper day.

However, as you can imagine, I've got to be around for my boy tomorrow to watch all things, via Facebook this time, so I'm not going to have time to blog about using this mega event in our English lessons.

I'm pretty sure you'll be 'dogme'ing it anyway but just in case you came on over for a tip or two, allow me to point you in the direction of another great teaching blog with lots of great suggestions and cool links!

p.s. a week later: I used Jeffrey Hill's slideshare of Obama cartoons and got lots of mileage - my students were the ones who spotted the connections (the type of shoes thrown etc.,) that I'd have missed. Provoked much conversation however would recommend doing this only with students who have an interest in Politics, right?!

UPDATE 8Mar09 - this lesson plan now has an additional animated video which can you use to discuss process with students -especially good if teaching ESP:Aviation students.

Disasters in the news are great opportunities to get your students talking.

Whenever a major crisis hits the news media, words and facts fly out and students begin embedding statistics about the event in their brains.

If your students are anything like mine, after any major incident, they arrive in the classroom bursting to share what's happened (maybe because I'm constantly reminding them that I want them to small talk).

They're often able to tell us in English- even the lower level students - just how many people were involved, where 'it' occurred and the process: the before, during and aftermath.

They have opinions too.

Sometimes in their passion of finally having a story for me, though, I see clear areas of grammatical weakness and occasionally their sequencing adverbs are a little off.

Does this happen to you too?

If you'd like to test this exercise out, the crash of Flight 1549 into the Hudson River is a great example. It's dramatic, it's almost everyone who fly's greatest fear and it had a happy ending.

A very 'real' way to demonstrate the importance of adverbs of sequence/ adverbials of time.

And for my TwIT teachers, I really don't have to remind you that you can grab videos of flight 1549's crash (here)to turn this into a great multi-media lesson. You can also use this tracking map from the New York Times.

Languages Out There- materials which go way beyond just reading and looking at vocabulary. Challenging speaking activities - much different from the norm.

*if you'd like to recommend a site related to this theme, don't hesitate to add it below.

However if you've checked through these and unfortunately haven't found what you're looking for or you're simply in the mood for putting together your own news lesson, then here's a quick techie-sort-of-tip for you below.

PREP (10-15mins):

Go to Google, look at the top bar and click NEWS.

Make sure your computer is set for Google.com (in English).

Look at the left-hand side of the screen where it reads Top Stories >World >US >Business >Entertainment etc.

Click on one or all of these and choose one article for each student you have. Choose stories you know are currently in the popular papers of their countries, if possible, or articles related to their professional fields. Print.

PRE-DISCUSSION

Hand out a news story to each member of your class.

Ask them to scan the article for content and also to highlight INTERESTING words and phrases. Make sure they understand that

they don't have to understand every word, they should focus on the story.

Stop them after a reasonable amount of time has passed.

DISCUSSION

Break your students up into small groups and get them to share each others' stories.

Encourage them to use the words and phrases they highlighted when paraphrasing.

POST-DISCUSSION

Ask students to transfer the highlighted words and phrases that are useful to their lives/professions or interests into their notebooks.

the gap fill basically works on a 'lexical chunk' system in order for you (your students) to pay particular attention to the way words group together. If you're working with a group of fairly fluent and motivated students you can also use this activity as a philosophical discussion tool. ABBA sung this pre-internet, pre-a lot of other things and older students who were around when this was a hit will have much to add to the pot.

Video of this song

The official ABBA site has a gorgeous video with lyrics on screen. That's here.More songs related to the new year on youtube here.